B�la Bart�k plays a major role in many works by Peter E�tv�s. The love of Bart�k's music first appears in the piano piece "Kosmos". The...

B�la Bart�k plays a major role in many works by Peter E�tv�s. The love of Bart�k's music first appears in the piano piece "Kosmos". The title refers to Bart�k's famous piano cycle "Mikrokosmos". However, the work also bears the title "Kosmos" because Yuri Gagarin's famous space flight was about to take place when it was written in March 1961. E�tv�s was then 17 years old, and Gagarin excited the young composer's imagination. On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of Bart�k's birth in 2006, E�tv�s wrote a piano concerto in which he further developed Bart�k's ideas and thought processes. The concerto is entitled "CAP-KO", an acronym for "Concerto for Acoustic Piano, Keyboard, and Orchestra". The piano resources are extended by use of a computer, which adds further sounds to those being played - a revolutionary technology that E�tv�s wants to be understood as a symbol of Bart�k's pioneering spirit. The concerto centres on the famous Bart�k cascades of octaves and sixths. E�tv�s has twice re-arranged "CAP-KO" for other instrumentations, e.g. as "Sonata per sei" for two pianos, three percussionists, and sampler keyboard. Among the musicians E�tv�s has always admired is Frank Zappa. When Zappa died in 1993 at the young age of 42, E�tv�s responded with grief and anger. He said, "In connection with Zappa's premature and meaningless death, one really cannot praise God, but must protest." He composed a piece that gives expression to this protest. Since the 150 psalms in the Bible do not deal with protest, the piece became Psalm 151: "This is the one that is not in the Bible."